What This Concept Is Saying
The hardest thing to explain in the Yogācāra / Consciousness-Only (唯識) school is not the philosophy. The philosophy is bold enough — the claim that what we take to be an outer world of objects and an inner self are both expressions of one underlying store-consciousness (阿賴耶識, *ālaya-vijñāna*), and that everything we experience is "consciousness-only" (唯識, *vijñapti-mātra*). That part can be argued in a treatise.
What is harder to explain is the practice. Once the school has laid out the claim, the natural next question is: *what does it actually feel like to realize this? Does it arrive all at once? Step by step? What is happening on the inside, in what order, as the realization takes hold?*
The tradition takes that question seriously and answers it with a precise five-stage map: 五位 (pañcāvasthā). The stages are, in order:
1. 資糧位 (zīliáng wèi) — the Provisions / Equipment Stage 2. 加行位 (jiāxíng wèi) — the Application / Preparation Stage 3. 通達位 (tōngdá wèi) — the Penetration Stage (this is the bodhisattva's 見道, *darśana-mārga*, "seeing the way") 4. 修習位 (xiūxí wèi) — the Cultivation Stage (this is the bodhisattva's 修道, *bhāvanā-mārga*, "cultivating the way") 5. 究竟位 (jiūjìng wèi) — the Consummation Stage (full anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, unexcelled complete awakening)
The tradition's way of opening the question is itself worth knowing. In 世親's *Verses on Consciousness-Only* (《唯識三十頌》), the school sets it up this way: 「已成立唯識性、相，誰依幾位？如何悟入？」 — "Once the *nature* (性) and *characteristics* (相) of consciousness-only have been established, on the basis of which stages, and in what manner, does one enter into this realization?" The five stages are the direct answer to this exact question. They are not a curriculum dreamed up afterward; they are the school's response to a question the school itself raised.
The Prerequisite You Cannot Skip
Before any of the five stages can begin, the practitioner must possess what the *Cheng Weishi Lun* (《成唯識論》) calls 大乘二種種姓 — the two 种姓 (literally "lineages" or "family-characters," usually translated as "capacities" or "gotra") of the Mahāyāna path:
- 本性住種姓 (běnxìng zhù zhǒngxìng) — the *innate* capacity: a seed of unconditioned (無漏, *anāsrava*) potential that has, from beginningless time, been associated with the fundamental store-consciousness. The text describes it as 「無始以來依附本識、法爾所得無漏法因」 — "an unconditioned cause, attached to the fundamental consciousness from beginningless time, naturally obtained." It is not acquired; it is the ground one is given.
- 習所成種姓 (xí suǒ chéng zhǒngxìng) — the *acquired* capacity: ripened through hearing the Dharma (聞法界等流之法) and shaped by study and reflection (聞所成等熏習). This is what opens and develops through practice.
The text is firm: 「具此二性方能悟入」 — "Only with these two can one enter the realization." 五位 is not open to anyone with sufficient enthusiasm; it presumes a capacity that has been both always-present and actively cultivated. We will return to this in the section on misreadings, because contemporary readers often either inflate it (treating it as an "elect" doctrine) or ignore it entirely.
The Two Objects, Given Together
The whole map revolves around two objects, always given together:
- 唯識性 (wéishí xìng) — the *nature* of consciousness-only. In the school's standard vocabulary this is 真如 (*tathatā*, suchness): the way things truly are, empty of independent existence, unconditioned, unchanging. - 唯識相 (wéishí xiàng) — the *characteristics* of consciousness-only. This is 依他起性 (*paratantra-svabhāva*, dependent nature): the way phenomena actually appear as conditioned manifestations of consciousness.
The five stages are not five separate achievements. They are five moments in a single, continuous movement of *entering into these two together* — into both the unconditioned nature and the conditioned characteristics as one undoubled seeing. The stages form one arrow, not five independent targets.
The Five Stages, in the Tradition's Own Words
Let me walk through each stage using the exact markers the texts give, because the wording is itself the map. Each stage has a name, a technical characterization (which of two traditional "preparatory trainings" it counts as), and a defining phrase.
資糧位 — Provisions Stage (修大乘順解脫分) The classical marker: 「依識性、相能深信解」 — "Able to deeply trust and understand (the nature and characteristics of) consciousness-only." The name comes from supplies gathered before a long journey. Its formal quality is 信解 (*śraddhā-adhimokṣa*, faith-understanding): a deep, settled confidence in what one has been taught, paired with an initial conceptual grasp. The texts note that the practitioner here has *not yet begun* to actually subdue the two graspings — that belongs to the next stage. 信解 is the whole content of this stage. The technical designation — 修大乘順解脫分, "cultivating the Mahāyāna *portion conducive to liberation*" — frames it as a preparatory training oriented toward freedom, not yet doing the decisive work.
加行位 — Application Stage (修大乘順決擇分) The classical marker: 「能漸伏除所取、能取」 — "Able to gradually subdue and remove the grasped-object (所取) and the grasping-subject (能取)." This is sometimes loosely translated as "preparation" or "effort." More precisely, it is the phase of *active, focused work on a specific knot* the school calls 二取 (the two graspings):
- 能取 (néng qǔ) — the mental act of taking oneself to be a knowing subject ("I am the one who sees, knows, feels, decides"). - 所取 (suǒ qǔ) — the corresponding act of taking the world to be a known object ("this is what is out there, available to be known").
The 加行位 practitioner is doing targeted work to loosen these — both at once, since the school holds that they arise as a pair. The texts describe this stage as 「見道前的加功用行」 — "the applied effort that comes before seeing the way" — and note that it 「引發真見」, "brings forth genuine seeing." Its technical designation, 修大乘順決擇分 — "cultivating the Mahāyāna *portion conducive to decisive discernment*" — signals that the work is preparatory in form but decisive in direction: it is building toward a real seeing, not merely polishing belief.
通達位 — Penetration Stage (即諸菩薩所住見道) The classical marker: 「如實通達唯識相、性」 — "Truly, as-it-is, penetrates into the nature and characteristics of consciousness-only." This is 見道 (*darśana-mārga*, "seeing the way"): the structural shift in which consciousness-only is no longer a teaching one believes or an object one works on, but simply the way things actually are. The classical analogy used elsewhere in the tradition: not learning by being told that the rope is a rope, but the moment in which the snake-illusion dissolves and one sees, unmistakably, that there was never a snake. After this moment, one cannot return to not-seeing — though one can, and will, get distracted from it.
The phrase 如實 — "as-it-is" (*yathābhūta*) — is doing real work. It is not a beautiful interpretation, not a useful metaphor, not an insight-content. It is the way things actually are, seen without the overlay.
修習位 — Cultivation Stage (即諸菩薩所住修道) The classical marker: 「如實見理，數數修習」 — "Having seen the principle as-it-is, repeatedly cultivates." This is 修道 (*bhāvanā-mārga*, "cultivating the way"): the long, post-breakthrough maturation. Note the word 數數 (*śaś*, "again and again, repeatedly") — it is the heart of the stage. The school insists that seeing is one thing, integrating is another, and integration is mostly repetition. Old residues surface again in subtler forms: not "I am a self" anymore, but "I am an awakened self"; not "the world is solid" anymore, but "the world is beautifully mysterious"; not "I am grasping" anymore, but "I am skillfully engaging." Each subtle form is real 加 (applied) work.
The tradition's technical observation here is bracing: even at this stage, leakiness persists. Until the seventh bodhisattva-ground, both the seeds (種子, *bīja*) and the manifest activities (現行, *abhīvyakti*) in this stage are still mixed — conditioned (有漏, *sāsrava*) and unconditioned (無漏, *anāsrava*) coexisting. The practitioner is not failing to "stay enlightened." They are doing the work that genuinely comes after.
究竟位 — Consummation Stage (住無上正等菩提) The classical marker: 「出障圓明，能盡未來化有情類」 — "Exits the obstacles, becomes perfectly bright, and is able, to the end of the future, to guide sentient beings." The classical unpacking is exact:
- 出障 — permanently free of the two obstructions (二障): the affective obstructions (煩惱障) and the cognitive obstructions (所知障). - 圓明 — virtues fully complete (圓), wisdom fully bright (明). - 盡未來化有情類 — able to teach and guide beings without end, to the end of the future.
This is the definition of the stage. Note what it *does not* say. It does not say "achieves peace," "rests in bliss," "transcends the world." It says: the obstructions are gone, the capacities are fully bright, the activity of guiding beings flows without end. 究竟位 is not retirement. The very definition of completion is *unobstructed, boundless engagement*.
The Continuous Thread
Strip away the names, and the five stages are one arc:
信解 (資糧) → 漸伏除 (加行) → 真見通達 (通達) → 數數修習 (修習) → 出障圓明 (究竟).
Trust. Active loosening. Breakthrough. Repeated cultivation. Unobstructed activity. Every later stage presupposes everything earlier. The *Cheng Weishi Lun* is explicit that the five stages are a 連續進程 (continuous process) of 信解 → 漸伏除 → 真見通達 → 數數修習伏斷餘障 → 出障圓明 — not five stops on a ladder, but one deepening.
A Note on the Leakiness Framework
The *Cheng Weishi Lun* also analyzes the five stages in terms of whether one's seeds and manifest activities are conditioned (有漏) or unconditioned (無漏). The picture is intricate but worth knowing:
- In 資糧位 and 加行位: for "gradual-awakening" practitioners, both seeds and manifest activities can already include unconditioned elements; for "sudden-awakening" practitioners, manifest activity is still wholly conditioned even as both kinds of seeds are present. - At 通達位: seeds are mixed, but manifest activity is already purely unconditioned. - In 修習位, up to the seventh bodhisattva-ground: seeds *and* manifest activity are still mixed. - From the eighth bodhisattva-ground onward: seeds remain mixed, but manifest activity is again purely unconditioned. - At 究竟位: both seeds and manifest activity are wholly unconditioned.
This framework punctures a common fantasy: that breakthrough = automatic completion. The leakiness analysis says: even after 通達位, you are still working through residues for a long, long time. The school's further framework of 三無數劫 (three incalculable eons) — divided into 遠波羅蜜多, 近波羅蜜多, and 大波羅蜜多 (the *far*, *near*, and *great pāramitās*) — exists precisely to honor this duration: the powers of giving, ethics, patience, and the rest go from being barely able to move the needle, to gradually subduing the afflictions, to finally subduing all of them. Even at the "great pāramitā" stage, however, subtle traces of cognitive obstruction remain; only 究竟位 is wholly pure.
This is also why the texts say that the ten kinds of bodhisattva practice 「五位皆具, 而以修習位表現最為顯著」 — "are present in all five stages, but the Cultivation Stage displays them most strikingly." 修習位 is not a tail; it is the long body of the path.
A Walk-Through in Contemporary Life
To make this less abstract, let me take one plausible practitioner — call her Anjali — and walk with her through the five stages. Anjali is in her mid-thirties, has been meditating with an app for some years, attended a couple of retreats, reads a mix of Buddhist, contemplative, and philosophical material, and has begun to suspect that the "self" doing all this is not as solid as it appears. (This is a composite picture; substitute your own details.)
資糧位 — the Equipment Phase
What this looks like, mapped strictly to 「依識性、相能深信解」:
- Reading and re-reading books that reframe the world — perhaps a popular introduction to Yogācāra, or Evan Thompson on mind, or Pema Chödrön on groundlessness. - Attending talks, retreats, dharma gatherings. Building trust in a teacher, a lineage, a vocabulary. The trust is not blind; it is the felt recognition that this framing seems to fit one's actual experience better than the default one. - Gradually absorbing the intellectual claim: that what seems like an outside world and a separate self are deeply interdependent. Beginning to suspect that "things are not as solid as they look." - A growing sense, more felt than argued, that the subject-object split is something one does rather than something one finds.
The classical marker is matched exactly. 信解 (deep trust-understanding) is the active ingredient. Anjali has not yet begun the pointed work of deconstructing 能取 and 所取 — she is accumulating the conceptual and affective resources for that work.
The most common mis-mapping here: Treating 資糧位 as if it were the whole practice. Many contemporary readers live almost entirely in this stage, mistaking intellectual clarity and emotional resonance for realization. 信解 is necessary; it is not 通達. The voice in the head that says "I have understood emptiness" is often the same voice 信解 has been training.
A pitfall specific to the contemporary moment: the internet makes it possible to live in 資糧位 indefinitely — adding new frameworks, retreats, teachers, vocabularies — without ever beginning the pointed 加行 work. 五位 is not stern about this; it does not condemn the equipment stage. It does insist, gently, that the equipment is for the journey, not the journey itself.
加行位 — the Application Phase
What this looks like, mapped strictly to 「能漸伏除所取、能取」:
- Beginning a structured, pointed practice — not casual meditation-as-relaxation, but a targeted investigation of 能取 and 所取. This might look like classical 唯識 meditation on the constructed nature of "knower" and "known," or a depth-psychology inquiry into how the sense of "I am the one in here" is assembled moment by moment, or rigorous mindfulness work that asks, again and again, who is observing. - In daily life: catching, mid-thought, the felt sense of "I am the one who knows this" and noticing how that sense constructs itself; sitting with "this is what is being known" and watching the assembly happen. Not trying to suppress either — looking at how each is made. - Beginning to experience actual loosening: moments where the sense of being-a-knower and the sense of there-being-a-known relax, briefly, on their own. These moments are *not yet* 通達位. They are the warm-up.
The classical marker is matched exactly. The object of the work is specifically 二取 (subject-grasping and object-grasping). The texts note that this stage 「引發真見」 — prepares the breakthrough.
The most common mis-mapping here: Substituting generic "good practice" for the specific work. A practitioner who hears "Practice Stage" may start doing yoga, being kinder to colleagues, volunteering, going to therapy — all valuable, none of which are 加行位 in the technical sense. 加行位 is pointed work on 能所二取; whatever else one is doing in life is separate.
A subtler mis-mapping: equating moments of loosening with the breakthrough. 加行位 can produce states that look very much like 通達位 — spaciousness, quiet, the felt sense that the self has dissolved. The tradition insists these are different. Loosening is a state; 通達 is a structural shift in seeing.
通達位 — the Penetration Phase
What this looks like, mapped strictly to 「如實通達唯識相、性」:
- A moment of genuine, irreversible structural shift. Not a peak experience necessarily; sometimes the moment is quiet, even austere. Anjali sees, unmistakably, the way things have been. Consciousness-only is no longer a teaching to be trusted (信解) or a target of effort (伏除); it is simply what is the case. - In her daily life afterward: the long-held assumption that "I am in here, the world is out there" becomes visibly and durably transparent. She cannot return to not-knowing this — though she can, and will, get distracted from it.
The classical marker is matched exactly. The phrase 如實 — "as-it-is" — is doing real work: not an interpretation, not a metaphor, not a content of mind — the way things actually are, seen through.
The most common mis-mapping here: Romanticizing the breakthrough as the destination. Contemporary spirituality is saturated with "awakening narratives" that frame 通達位 as the goal. The 五位 map is unambiguous: 通達位 is the third of five, and 修習位 is where most of life is lived after breakthrough.
A subtler mis-mapping: confusing peak experiences with structural shifts. 通達位 need not be ecstatic. It can be quiet, even ordinary. "Penetration" is structural, not affective. Practitioners who wait for fireworks often miss the genuine, quiet seeing.
修習位 — the Cultivation Phase
What this looks like, mapped strictly to 「如實見理，數數修習」:
- Years, often decades, of integrating what has been seen. Anjali keeps coming back to the same insight in new contexts — at work, in conflict with her partner, in her body, when tired, when frightened, when a parent dies, when she gets the promotion. Each return reveals a residue that wasn't visible before. - Old habits of subject-grasping surface in subtler forms. Not "I am a self" anymore — that's been seen — but "I am an awakened self." Not "the world is solid" anymore — but "the world is beautifully mysterious, and I have a special view of it." Not "I am grasping" anymore — but "I am skillfully engaging." Each subtle form is real 加 work; the school insists the residues do not vanish at breakthrough, they reappear in subtler forms. - Relationships, work, body, emotions become the curriculum. The insight is tested not in retreat but in the kitchen, the office, the bedroom, the hospital waiting room.
The classical marker is matched exactly. The word 數數 ("again and again") is the heart of the stage. The tradition's own technical observation belongs here: until the seventh bodhisattva-ground, conditioned and unconditioned activity coexist in this stage. Anjali is not failing to "stay enlightened." She is doing the work that genuinely comes after.
The most common mis-mapping here: Treating 修習位 as "maintenance mode" or "the boring part after the breakthrough." The 五位 map inverts this. The texts explicitly note that the ten kinds of practice are present in all five stages but displayed most strikingly in 修習位. The long middle is *the practice in its mature form*, not the aftereffect.
Another mis-mapping: grief at the duration. If breakthrough was supposed to finish the work, the long post-period can feel like failure. The tradition does not see it that way. 數數修習 is the practice. The three incalculable eons exist precisely so that practitioners don't mistake the duration for a defect.
究竟位 — the Consummation Phase
What this looks like, mapped strictly to 「出障圓明，能盡未來化有情類」 — as best one can describe it from outside the stage:
- 出障: the two obstructions no longer arise, even in subtle form. This is not a one-time clearing; it is a permanent state of being unobstructed. - 圓明: the full range of a Buddha's qualities is unobstructedly present — not as a stash one hoards, but as a brightness that flows through appropriate forms. - 盡未來化有情: activity on behalf of others flows without effort, without end, without obstruction. The work of guiding beings goes on as long as there are beings to guide.
This is the tradition's description of what completion means.
The most common mis-mapping here: Treating 究竟位 as a personal accomplishment one "achieves" and then enjoys. The map says the definition of completion is *endless activity on behalf of others*. "Buddhahood" in this school is not a destination one retires to; it is a fully unobstructed way of engaging.
Another mis-mapping: picturing 究竟位 as permanent bliss or peace. 出障 is not the same as 樂. 圓明 is bright, not necessarily warm.
A subtle but crucial point: by 通達位, the self that was climbing has been seen through. By 究竟位, even the trace of that self is gone. 五位 describes the maturation of insight, not the ascent of a person. The map is not for the ego; it is for what the ego has been obscuring.
Why Today's Practitioners Need This Map
A few reasons this rather technical map is unusually useful for the contemporary moment:
1. It legitimizes the long middle. Contemporary culture prizes the breakthrough, the peak experience, the "aha." The 五位 map is bracing: it says the long middle is where the practice actually lives. 修習位 is not the aftermath of realization; it is the practice in its mature form. For someone who had a genuine insight at 28 and is still working through things at 45, this is a relief, not a judgment.
2. It separates conviction from realization. 資糧位 and 通達位 are not the same thing. In a moment when many people "believe in consciousness-only" in some general way — having read the books, attended the retreats, used the vocabulary — the map says: your 信解 is real; it is also the beginning, not the end. This protects against both spiritual bypassing (acting as if you've realized) and spiritual nihilism (dismissing belief as worthless because it isn't yet realization).
3. It honors the prerequisite without turning it into gatekeeping. The insistence on 二種種姓 is not a chosen-versus-rejected doctrine. It is the school's honest naming of conditions. The map says: the practice presupposes a capacity. Working with that presupposition — being curious about whether and how the capacity is present — is itself part of the practice. In a culture that often reduces the path to "try harder," this is a useful nuance.
4. It frames completion as activity, not exit. In a culture obsessed with "exit" — exiting the rat race, exiting the self, exiting the cycle — the Yogācāra map quietly insists that the exit is also the entry into boundless engagement. 究竟位 is not retirement. This is useful for a moment when many people confuse peace with withdrawal and insight with disengagement.
5. It provides a non-hierarchical sequence. Each stage has its own integrity. 資糧位 is not lesser than 通達位; it is the necessary root. 加行位 is not inferior to 究竟位; it is the actual doing. There is no "higher" stage in the moral sense; there is a sequence in the sense of deepening insight. For a culture that tends to rank experiences (and rank the people who have them), the map offers a sequence without a hierarchy.
6. It gives precise vocabulary for what therapy often touches. The contemplative West has imported many of the felt-experiences of 加行位 and 修習位 into therapeutic contexts (and vice versa). The 五位 map lets a practitioner use therapeutic language where it is genuinely helpful — without losing the technical precision of the school's own categories. 加行位 is not "therapy" and is not "not-therapy"; it is *pointed deconstruction of 能所二取*. Calling it by its proper name keeps the work from being absorbed into a more diffuse self-improvement.
Common Misreadings and Clarifications
Let me list the misreadings I encounter most often, with what the classical map says instead.
Misreading 1: 五位 = 五十二位 or 十地. The five stages are not the same as the fifty-two stages (五十二位) of the bodhisattva path, nor are they the same as the Ten Grounds (十地). 五十二位 is a finer-grained framework — ten faiths, ten abodes, ten practices, ten dedications, ten grounds, and two final stages (等覺 and 妙覺). 十地 names the ten bodhisattva-grounds proper. 五位 is coarser-grained: the ten grounds largely correspond to parts of 修習位, with 究竟位 lying beyond them. Mixing the systems collapses important distinctions — most importantly, it makes 修習位 look like a long string of sub-stages rather than the school describes it: a single quality of *repeated cultivation*.
Misreading 2: 五位 as a "checklist." Reading the five stages as a to-do list — "I've done 資糧位, now I'm working on 加行位" — flattens the map into a ladder. The classical text is explicit that 五位 is a 連續進程 (continuous process) of 信解 → 漸伏除 → 真見通達 → 數數修習 → 出障圓明. It is one arrow of deepening insight, not five independent stations. A practitioner is not "in" 修習位 the way one is "in" a job title. They are at a depth of integration within one continuous movement.
Misreading 3: 加行位 = "meditation" in general. In contemporary usage, "spiritual practice" often just means "sitting on the cushion." 加行位 is more pointed: its specific object is 漸伏除所取、能取 — the gradual subduing of subject-grasping and object-grasping. A practice that does not engage this specific object is not 加行位 in the technical sense, regardless of how diligently it is done. Mindfulness of breath, for instance, can be a vehicle for 加行位 — *or* a relaxation technique. Which one it is depends on whether the practitioner is using it to investigate 能所二取. The misreading here is gentle but consequential: turning a precise deconstructive task into an undifferentiated "practice."
Misreading 4: 通達位 = "peak experience." Many readers equate the breakthrough with bliss, light, dissolution, or otherworldly states. The classical description — 「如實通達」 — is structural, not affective. 通達位 can be quiet, even austere. The shift is in what one sees, not in how one feels. Conflating breakthrough with peak experience sets practitioners up for disappointment when their quiet "oh, that's how it actually is" does not match the fireworks they had been promised.
Misreading 5: 修習位 as "after the real work." The common modern belief: breakthrough is the hard part; after that, it's downhill. The 五位 map inverts this. 通達位 sees the principle; 修習位 works through the residues. The text even notes that until the seventh bodhisattva-ground, both seeds and manifest activities are still mixed (有漏 + 無漏). The "long middle" is not maintenance; it is the work. The tradition's three-incalculable-eons framework, with its far/near/great pāramitā distinctions, exists to keep practitioners from confusing the duration of 修習位 with a failure of practice.
Misreading 6: 究竟位 = personal retirement / heavenly reward. A persistent cultural image of "becoming a Buddha" is of a peaceful retirement into a timeless realm. The classical definition — 「出障圓明，能盡未來化有情類」 — says the opposite. Completion is the full flowering of capacity to guide beings, without obstruction, to the end of the future. 究竟位 is the most active stage, not the most restful. Even the framing of "圓明" — "perfectly bright" — suggests luminosity in service of seeing, not luminosity in solitary bliss.
Misreading 7: 種姓 as "destiny." Hearing that the practitioner must possess 二種種姓, many readers worry: is this an elect-versus-rejected doctrine? Am I in or out? The classical phrasing — 「依附本識、法爾所得」 — describes a seed-like capacity naturally present from beginningless time, ripened through practice. It is a description of *conditions*, not a decree of election. The tradition is also clear that the second 种姓 is acquired through hearing the Dharma; the very investigation of "do I have these?" is part of how the second becomes active. The misreading here is cultural rather than doctrinal: importing Protestant-style election anxiety into a system that does not work that way.
Misreading 8: 五位 as a single linear track one person walks once. Some readers imagine one practitioner entering 資糧位 and walking forward, one stage at a time. The tradition is more nuanced: the same practitioner may, in different dimensions of their life, be at different depths of integration — more mature around work, less mature around intimate relationships; further along in emotional reactivity, still shaky on existential fear. The map describes the maturation of insight, not the career of a single ego. It is a developmental description, not a biographical schedule.
Misreading 9: 唯識性 / 唯識相 as two separate things to be realized in sequence. The map speaks of 識性 and 識相 together, and the stages unfold by deepening into *both at once*. It is tempting to read 識性 (suchness, the unconditioned) as the deeper, more "spiritual" object, and 識相 (dependent nature, the conditioned) as a lesser, more "philosophical" object. The tradition rejects this split. 信解 is of both. 通達 is of both. The map's whole point is that the unconditioned and the conditioned are *known together*, not in two separate moves.
A short closing thought. 五位 is, in the end, the school saying something almost embarrassingly simple: *yes, the realization is one realization; no, it does not arrive in one moment; and here, in five named phases, is how it actually unfolds when conditions are right.* The embarrassment is that the simple thing is also rare and precious — most practitioners, most of the time, are somewhere in the first two stages; a few reach the third; the fourth occupies the bulk of the bodhisattva path; the fifth is the very definition of what the path is for.
What the map offers contemporary practitioners is not a goal to chase but a way of seeing where one actually is. 信解, 漸伏除, 真見通達, 數數修習, 出障圓明 — trust, loosening, breakthrough, repeated cultivation, unobstructed activity. The map names these honestly, refuses to flatter any of them, and lets the practitioner ask, with some precision: *which of these am I actually in, right now, in this corner of my life?*
That is a useful question to be able to ask.